Endorsing Clinton Costs Newspapers Subscribers

Newspapers that have traditionally endorsed Republicans for president are paying a financial price—cancelled subscriptions for crossing over and endorsing Democrat Hillary Clinton.

According to The New York Times, the cancellations were coming in every ten minutes at The Arizona Republic, which had never endorsed a Democrat for president in its 126-year history.

In the Republic’s editorial the paper unloaded on Donald Trump, citing what it called Trump’s “long history of objectifying women and his demeaning comments about women during the campaign are not just good-old-boy gaffes,” adding that “They are evidence of deep character flaws. They are part of a pattern.”

The Republic was joined by the Dallas Morning News, which hadn’t endorsed a Democrat for president since before World War II, and the Cincinnati Enquirer, which has endorsed Republicans for nearly 100 years, before deciding to back Clinton.

Even though these papers went against tradition, it was more a case of being anti-Trump than pro-Clinton, as evidenced by their editorials. That has also been the case with many Republicans who have publicly endorsed Clinton over Trump.

The lack of real enthusiasm for Clinton and the anti-Trump arguments in these editorials call into question the value of endorsements, considering that most people are getting their news online and are more interested in celebrity news than editorials.

Given that situation, and the loss of valuable subscribers, the papers might have been better off not endorsing either candidate this time around.